How Sez Sees It

How to show anger and fight for change in a pandemic Unless you have been off world lately you will know that we have been living through a pandemic for a year now. This has also been a year of social change. First of all was the Black Lives Matter movement that gained traction again following the death of George Floyd. Next came the events of the last week (at the time of writing) where women are trying to make their voices heard in Britain. Black Lives Matter In May 2020 the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers cause wide spread and actually world wide protest. Statues of those connected with the slave trade were toppled and people took to the streets to march. There were protests and counter protests throughout the summer and it was a time when people wanted to really make their voices heard. Pandemic or not, they were angry and they wanted to be taken seriously. Sarah Everard In the same week that saw International Women's Day and Mother's Day (UK) a young ...

Can 2021 be better than 2020? 2020 Round-up 2020 was a total shit show, there can be no denying that. Apart from the personal losses my husband and I had last year, the world was literally burning at times, drowning at others and all of this while a pandemic ravaged the land.  If I were a religious person I would say that 2020 was a series of plagues sent by God to punish us all...but I am not. Basically a few things were unexpected and others were totally in our control and we should have done something about them a long time ago. Really it was shocking and saddening that in 2020 we were still having to see people fight for their freedoms. The Black Lives Matter movement got going again at a level not previously seen after George Floyd, an African-American man, was killed by police during his arrest for allegedly using a fake $20 bill. The officers in question initially saw no justice and, rightly so, protests were seen across America and eventually the world.  Australia bega...

How to make the world a better place Right now the world seems terrible. There are so many bad things going on in the world that it is easy to lose track of the good in people. After all, you have the President of the United States who thinks that comparing the size of his button (nuclear) with the one belonging to the dictator of North Korea is a great idea. The POTUS believes he is the smartest human to ever human and that all the news outlets are just 'fake news' and out to get him. Then you have the UK PM who is totally ineffectual and is presiding over the car crash that is Brexit and the destruction of our greatest ever national accomplishment, the NHS. On top of that you have a YouTuber who thinks that going to a sacred forest ( Aokigahara - Japan), where people go to tragically end their lives, and dancing around like a tit when he finds a victim of suicide is a top idea for views. There is a glimmer of hope There is so much other crap going on right now as wel...

The Tories accused Labour of having a magic money tree for all their plans but they are the ones using it for the Queen and DUP when everyone else is suffering. It has made me so angry that the Tories voted down a motion to remove the freeze on public sector wages. In real terms those wages have actually been a pay cut as prices of everything continues to rise. This means our teachers, firefighters, nurses, doctors, police, local government officers and many more are doing the same job for less. Actually, in some cases they are doing more for less as there has been a huge reduction in job numbers over the last few years. Meanwhile, the Queen, an unelected head of state, gets a pay rise which constitutes multi-millions so that she can refurbish her home. Compare that to one case study (because we have heard a lot about it) Grenfell Tower. This is a place where people were in social housing and it was re-clad with something highly flammable to save a couple of quid for each p...

What is happening in British politics? Who the hell knows? Well this should be a little round up of how I have viewed the last few weeks and in particular the election on 8 June 2017. Actually, let's start at the beginning shall we? Brexit. What is Brexit? A good question. To Theresa May, Brexit means Brexit. So that clears that up.  In reality this is what happened. In 2015, following five years of coalition between the Conservatives (Tories) and the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems), there was a General Election. The coalition was formed because the Tories didn't get enough votes to win a majority and take power back after 18 years of Labour Governments. They needed to team up with the Lib Dems to make them the most powerful in the House of Commons and so the then leader of the Tories, David Cameron, became Prime Minister and the then leader of the Lib Dems, Nick Clegg, became Deputy Prime Minister. There was an agreement in the House of Commons that elections would n...

Before I start, read this Huffington Post article. Theresa May is running scared Where is our PM? Have you seen her? Have you seen her without an invitation to see her? That is the real question.  No TV debates May has said she will not be participating in TV debates because she thinks the public want to meet with her and not see the debates. She will be interviewed on the tele though so there is that. The BBC and ITV have already said that they will hold leader debates and the threat is there to 'empty chair' her if she doesn't turn up. Unfortunately Corbyn's team have been hinting that he won't do a debate without May but I think that would be a mistake. I think he should definitely appear and make her seem the scared little wotsit she really is (wanted to say something stronger but I didn't because I am a nice girl). Who is she really meeting? That is the question. If May is so desperate to 'meet the people' on this campaign the...

General Election 2017 Here we go again. On 18 April 2017 Theresa May, PM of this fair land, announced a snap election after promising she would never announce a snap election. Yup, the woman who became PM simply because no one else stood against her a year ago has finally announced an early election. She needed 2/3 of the House of Commons to allow it though because back in 2011 an Act of Parliament was passed to make sure that elections could only happen every five years and any snap elections needed cross party support. Well she got it with 509-13 in favour and the country goes to the polls again on 8 June (belated birthday pressie for my brother there). Election fatigue There is some concern that there is election fatigue as since 2015 we have had a General Election and a referendum on Brexit. Go back another year and we had the referendum on Scottish Independence too. People may be thinking they are trotting off to the polls a little too often and it is going to be interesti...

Things that get my goat this week It could be that my period is due this week but some things have really pissed me off. I have decided, like any decent human, that the best place to air this annoyance is on the internet. Everyone else seems to do it so I am going to give it a go as well. Here we go then... Trump and Syria This week Donald Trump, reality TV star and somehow President of the United States of America (!) has bombed a (not especially strategic) Syrian airbase in retaliation for a chemical attack the Syrian army did on Syrian civilians . The attack itself is disgusting and wrong. It used a combination of chemicals believed to include mustard gas and sarin gas (sarin was the gas used on the Japanese underground by Aum Shinrikyo in the mid-90's which killed around a dozen people and left hundreds more with life-long injuries and health problems).  It was right that Trump spoke out against the attacks and we have to give him the benefit of the doubt that his ...

There seems to be a shift in global politics at the moment. Everything seems to be shifting to the right and this is something we should probably be scared of. UK I guess there has always been a slant to the right (certainly reasserted itself in 2010) but things have gathered pace over the last few months. First of all there was the referendum that, in my opinion, should never have been which led to a vote for Britain to leave the EU. This was led by groups from the far right of the Tories and UKIP mostly. The main concerns are that there were some Labour strongholds that voted to leave too where voters cited concerns with immigration as a main factor in making a decision. The big problem might be the rise of the right wing press in the UK. Papers like the Daily Mail, Daily Express, etc. all pushed for 'Brexit' (which to me sounds like the sort of thing an unimaginative teen would come up with when trying to 'ship' things together). These papers have a wide reader...

2016 is a year that should be remembered for a VERY long time. There has to be a reason that it is so shit and I will try and figure it out so bear with me because I am by no means an expert, but I will give it my best shot. Death: First of all there are all the celeb deaths. We have lost some great people this year like Bowie and Rickman but actually there seem to have been more than ever before. The reason for this, as I think I have previously mentioned, is that they were all baby boomers. They all started their careers around the same time and they all lived a certain hedonistic lifestyle in their earlier years. The 70's in particular were a time of experimental drugs, booze and sex. A time when these people dying now were in their 20's and that is a time when you feel indestructible. The reality is that this behaviour can have an effect years later. That of course and we consider people in their 60's to be young nowadays because we have the ability to keep peopl...

While the post-Brexit blues still hang over us we needed something to raise the collective spirit of the nation and on Sunday 10 July 2016 that came in the form of Andy Murray winning his second Wimbledon singles title. As previously written about we who voted remain have been feeling something that can only be described as grief. Studies have been done to back this up. Apparently we are suffering sleepless nights, intense feelings of sadness and emptiness and going through the stages of grief like denial and anger. The other things since then include the dropping of the pound to a 31 year low and the rise in hate crime (racism basically). This is all off the back of Brexit. It isn't just Brexit that has made the nation feel this way. Basically June and early July was a rubbish time for us all. England were knocked out of the last 16 of the Euros by Iceland who are made up of professional and amateur players and who's coach is a dentist. Then there have been the large n...

Just a round up of things that we should all be aware of. Although if you haven't heard this stuff then you have been living under a rock. 1. Brexit is still rubbish Since the vote two weeks ago the pound is still at a 31 year low. There are now worries that the pound will reach parity with the US dollar if leaders and banks do not act fast. On top of that the people who were in charge of bringing about this economic mess have all jumped ship. Boris Johnson has decided he doesn't want to be leader of the Tories (and by extension PM). This could have something to do with the fact that he never really wanted Brexit in the first place. What Bo Jo really wanted was the PM's job with a slight majority remain so he could say he tried to bring us out of Europe but the people wanted to stay and no one likes Cameron anymore so he had to be PM but it is ok really because he can see benefits in remaining. The actual result was a shock for him and now he doesn't want to clean...

I am in mourning for my future, my unborn children's future and those friends of mine who were just slightly too young to vote this time. Last night it was announced that Britain had voted to leave the EU and all based on a pack of lies. Even this morning Nigel Farage of UKIP has been on national television and admitted that the Leave claim of £350 million a week into the EU which could go to the NHS was a lie. He actually sat there and said that. Already we have seen the pound plummet to a 31 year low. The last time the pound was this low was 1985. I was born in 1986. I have literally never known it to be this bad in my entire life. I am 30 in November. Cameron has already said he is standing down in October. As if the country were not fucked enough this morning he is adding more uncertainty into the mix, but really he has nowhere else to go. He should never have called this referendum in the first place. Then for him to stand on TV and cry is just as big an insult to the co...

Today we get to make the biggest decision for a generation. I have heard a lot from both sides but I knew before this all began that I would be voting remain. For me it is simple. I want to ensure that my future is secure. Actually I want to ensure that when I have children their future is secure. Also, through the music scene I am involved with I get to meet people of all ages and there are people slightly too young to vote who will be affected by this and they are good people so I am voting remain for them. I want to see a country that has a strong economic future with trade links to some amazing countries is Europe. I want free travel, the right to work where I want, the human rights I have lived my life with, the equality/diversity, the environmental stuff and all the other wonders that come with being part of the EU. I have been through it all before though so I will not go into detail about the stuff that will affect the whole country. Instead I will reflect on my personal ...

There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. Honestly, if they were all terrorists do you think any of the rest of us would be alive or living the way we are now? Seriously? There were some odd, dangerous and hurtful comments after the latest wave of attacks in Ankara, Turkey and Brussels, Belgium. All along the lines of all Muslims being terrorists or freedom of movement in the EU leading to arms and terrorists moving around too easily. This kind of comment only incites hatred and not just from the groups you would think. For a start it is totally inappropriate to use the attacks in Belgium on 22 March to make comments like ‘free movement means free movement of Kalashnikovs’, which was a wonderful comment by Nigel Farage of UKIP just moments after the news broke. Of course he is hoping that Britain comes out of the EU but when so many people lost their lives or were injured that was really not the time to make a comment like that. Totally heartless and not at all funny. Of...

There have been some high profile cases about women recently. Actually that appears to be all the time. There seems to be a fascination with women and by that I don't hint that it is all positive. Two women recently received death threats for posting pictures on social media of their period blood (as if half the population bleeding once a month is a scary thing), Kim Kardashian-West posted a naked selfie and either pissed everyone off or didn't and a model turned actress rightfully pointed out that a male counterpart was never described as an 'ex'stripper' like she was. The other big one of course is the fact that America might be about to have its first female presidential candidate for the Democrats in Hilary Clinton. Considering even the UK had a female PM in the 1970s - 1980s (not that it went particularly well in my opinion but that had nothing to do with her being a woman and everything to do with her being the most evil Tory to ever walk the Earth) it see...

If you have been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks you may have missed a few things. Here is a bit of a round up for you. People are giving cancer the finger: January 2016 was the worst month in terms of high profile deaths from cancer. I can't think of another month in my life time quite like it. First of all, just before the year actually started we lost Motorhead front man (and ultimate rock star) Lemmy at the age of 70 to cancer. Then the year started and it got worse and worse. First of all David Bowie, the wonderful and creative musician and actor, passed away at the age of 69 from cancer immediately following the release of his album Blackstar. Then actor and total legend Alan Rickman passed away at the age of 69 from Cancer. Lastly, on the very final day of the month, we lost the veteran and beloved broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan at the age of 77 to cancer. What a crappy start to the year huh? These people meant so much to so many around the world. They al...